by Marieze Tarr Chairperson SD53
SD53 is very excited about the new Funding Announcement by the Ministry of Education. MLA John Slater announced this morning at SOSS (April 20th) that we will be receiving 19.5 million dollar to complete construction of Southern Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver. At this morning’s announcement drawings of the new school were unveiled, the building will also include a new Theatre and Neighbourhoods of Learning facility. Tenders for the project have been posted and the tentative timelines for completion of the School is late 2013 and for the Neighbourhoods of Learning and the Auditorium is 2014.
Our Fifth Annual Pow Wow, held at Osoyoos Secondary School, was very successful with 400 elementary students attending in the morning and 200 secondary students attending in the afternoon. It was a celebration of language and culture by the Okanagan Nation attended by many dignitaries and also by the local Chief, Chief Louie.
In April the district hosted its first Learning Forum of the year. The forum focused on Aboriginal Education with presentations from Deidre Simpson (teacher TEN), Marcus Toneatto (principal SESS) and Amanda Montgomery. Deidre brought some of her students to talk about the new Grade 4 Okanagan Peoples Unit that she developed with Helen Gallager (District Aboriginal Contact Teacher). This unit will now be implemented in all Grade 4 classes in our district. Marcus and Amanda presented the New R’Native Voice course, available to students in Similkameen and Oliver, to the board. Two of our students Tony Abellan (TEN) and Shannon Terbasket (SESS) spoke about being elected to the Aboriginal Education Advisory Council and their role on it.
Notice of Motion for the following policies were given at the last Regular Board Meeting: Policy F-1 (International/Exchange/International Students), Policy F-9 (Special Education), Policy F-12 (Child Protection), Policy C-6 (Purchasing), Policy C-7 (School Generated Funds). These policies are on the district’s website and we are awaiting input from all of our partner groups before they are approved.
We also had our first Budget Advisory Committee Meeting on April 18. We have representatives from all of our partner groups (teachers, CUPE, principals, parents and aboriginal education workers) on the committee. Our next meeting will be on June 6th.